Intimate portraits of artists and the jewellery that matters to them

Earlier this year, Raven Row Gallery presented Eyes Open in the Dark, a haunting retrospective of the work of Peter Hujar. The American photographer, who was a central figure in New York’s downtown scene in the 70s and early 80s, was devoted to making intimate portraits of his friends, lovers and those with whom he shared formative relationships. Hujar was renowned for his integrity and refused to compromise or pander to commercial forces. Instead, he made idiosyncratic work that resisted surface interpretation and rewarded the viewer for their deep engagement. “The sheer presence of the photographs, in spirit as well as physically, felt so poignant,” recalls Steph Wilson, who was so affected by the show that she visited three times. “We’re all starved of work like this in a time of endless digitised imagery.”  

Hujar’s show became the catalyst for Wilson’s debut photobook, Gilded Lilies, an intimate rumination on the objects we adorn ourselves with and the infinities they contain. Shot in London over two weeks during April’s heat wave, Wilson gathered friends and collaborators – artists and meaning-makers in their fields, including Harley Weir, Elsa Ruoy and Micheala Stark – to be photographed wearing pieces of jewellery that matter to them. 

“I’m a devoted materialist,” Wilson explains over email. “Since I was a kid, I’ve been entranced by unusual objects that seemed to pulse with narrative, mysticism or beauty. My relationship to objects is one of love; they become vital sources of energy to create. They nourish us – artists or collectors – so deeply. I think the commodification of most of what we deem as valuable has made us hesitant to admit we love anything material out of fear of being deemed as vacuous. But take away monetary value, and it’s just down to that stirring feeling an object gives you. Jewellery can hold many lives within it. My dead father’s signet ring, for instance, remains a potent piece of him. It’s about acknowledging how much exists beyond ourselves and how these objects lived many lives before we were born and will continue to, well, after we’re dead.”

Like Hujar, Wilson wanted the work to be informed by her existing relationships, people who knew her work and therefore understood what they were getting into. "I’m at a point where people expect to be nude when I photograph them,” explains Wilson. “Making nudes felt appropriate for Gilded Lilies, as I wanted the book to feel unbound to a particular era. To feel intimate – sensual but not sexy – and provoke a feeling of vulnerability for both the sitter and the viewer. That uncharted territory of true vulnerability – no hiding behind fancy lighting, distracting fashion or airbrushing – almost feels taboo nowadays. It’s flavoured with being somewhat problematic, as if seeing yourself for how you really are is triggering.”

The book’s title, a subversive misquote of the phrase “gilding the lily” taken from Shakespeare’s 1595 play King John, offers a satirical anti-title for a book about adornment. This rebellious energy is palpable throughout the publication, from Kinza Shenn’s captivating essays to the diverse belief systems about beauty shared by each of Wilson’s sitters. “Michaela Stark perfectly embodies the themes of the book; she uses her own folds of flesh as embellishment. She's a facetious twist on how we're told to present as ‘appropriately’ beautiful. Her work is defiant and provocative, all whilst being so enmeshed with her deep, instinctual devotion to how she perceives beauty, which is entirely hers.”

In contrast to Wilson’s other long-term project, Ideal Mother, now in its fourth year of production, Gilded Lilies is rooted in spontaneity, fuelled by the initial surge of enthusiasm born from Hujar’s show. As Wilson describes it, “Part of the project’s magic was down to the parameters I set for it. The fast pace removed an element of distraction, making the work feel more honest. I wanted that spark to be its driving force, and not let the work get dried up by pragmatism and logistics."

While reframing materiality, adornment and sensuality are the key themes in Gilded Lilies, Wilson also describes the book as a “love letter to what feels missing in image-making today.” Turned off by our current image world, where AI and social media’s commodification of photography dominate our screens, Wilson opted for an entirely analogue approach. Each image is shot on film, left entirely unretouched and printed by hand, offering the viewer a rare phenomenological connection to the medium. “It’s become a standard process to take an image of someone, and without even running it by them, removing what we presume will be considered as flaws. The effect this has had on art and the representation of artists is really sad to me. We all need to be a corner of respite. I want to make photography feel precious again.”